ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS: THE GRAPEVINE
by George Por

The other day I asked a friend of mine, a telecom executive with a large Bay Area corporation, "What's the single most menacing danger for your organization?"

In a speck of time he answered, "Becoming a dinosaur. You know why the dinosaur disappeared? It took too long a time to bring information from the members to the head."

As we started discussing which of the available communication technologies, or which combination of them, is the best antidote to dinosaurism, I asked him what his key criteria are for deciding "go/no go" when introducing a new communication technology.

"Richness, flexibility and seductiveness," he said.

Then he explained what he meant:

"Imagine my typical line manager who has to learn a different set
of instructions for each separate system---whenever he wants to call
for an online consultation with his counterparts in other divisions;
to access a departmental database; or to look into the next month's
schedule of the conference room---he's just not going to pick up on
them.

"By contrast, if he gets a handy tool on his desk, which provides
him with a rich choice of uses, a variety of communication modes, and
does it with the seductive power of icons, voice insert,
straightforward menus and color graphics integrated in the same
software architecture, that system will be the winner."

"Have you come across anything like that?"

I thought of this conversation while I was playing with the latest version of Grapevine, a system that offers electronic mail, chat (real-time conferencing), forums (asynchronous conferencing), bulletin boards, directories, organizational and personal calendars and schedules with automatic tickler files, database capabilities and the ability to create custom newsletters that can be searched and
retrieved by category, author and date.

Grapevine Communications, Inc. has recently signed a contract to install Grapevine for Britton Lee Inc., a publisher of database software for mainframes and minicomputers. Britton Lee will use its Grapevine system to offer service and support to its customers around the world.

For further information, contact: Anthony J. Bay, President, Grapevine Communications Inc., at 501 Seaport Court, Suite 107, Redwood City, CA 94063 (415-367-9980).